Schäffer, Eugen (1802-71; Germany), and Belloli, Romualdo (1813-90; Italian), after Giotto di Bondone (c.1266/7-1337; Italian)
The Pietà from the Arena Chapel at Padua (c.1851-52)
Engraving, 32.8 x 37.0 (platemark), 50.2 x 67.3 (sheet)
Purchased, 1860
National Gallery of Victoria (p.12.35-1)
This print, engraved for the Arundel Society (as noted in the inscription), demonstrates Melbourne’s relatively up-to-date interest (in 1860) in the 19th-century revival of the “Italian primitives,” best known through the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Schäffer was the engraver, and Belloli the draughtsman.
A considerable number of further prints and reproductions of medieval and Renaissance art produced by the Arundel Society were acquired for the Melbourne collection during the succeeding decades – most of them chromo-lithographic reproductions not catalogued separately here: for discussion and further details, see Inglis “Art at Second Hand” (1988) (full details in Bibliography).
Refs.
Not listed in NGV 1894 or 1905
For Belloli, see e.g. http://www.parmaelasuastoria.it/cms_controls/printNode.aspx?idNode=228 (citing P. Ceschi, in Dizionario Enciclopedico pittori e incisori, 1990, I, 465), indicating the biographical dates shown here; see also Bénézit 2, p.103. Schäffer is not listed in either Bénézit or AKL
Giotto’s dates are usually given as shown here, based on the traditional view that he was aged 70 when he died in January 1337; however, see AKL 54 (2007), pp.471ff., suggesting he was probably born c.1270